“How do I even know it,” cried Cane, in despair, “from a few incoherent words my wife whispered in my ear as she passed me? Were I to tell, it may be only to mislead you.”
“Tell me, whatever may come of it.”
Cane took a turn or two up and down the room, and at last, coming in front of Luttrell, said: “She is about to take back her old name, and with it the humble fortune that belonged to it. She says you and yours have suffered enough from the unhappy tie that bound you to her family. She is resolved you shall never see, never hear of her again. She took her last look at Arran last night. To-morrow she declares she will go away from this, where none shall trace her. There’s her secret! I charge you not to betray how you came by it.”
“Let me see her; let me speak with her.”
“How can I? I have promised already that you should not hear she is here.”
“Send for your wife, and let me speak to her. I must—I will speak to her.”.
“Go into that room for a moment, then, and I will advise with my wife what is to be done.”
Harry passed into the room and sat down. He heard Cane’s bell ring, and soon afterwards could mark the tread of a foot on the stairs, and then the sound of voices talking eagerly in the adjoining room. His impatience nearly maddened him; his heart beat so that he felt as if his chest could not contain it; the vessels of his neck, too, throbbed powerfully. He opened the window for air, and then, as though the space was too confined, flung wide a door at the side of the room. As he did this, he saw that it led to the stairs. Quicker than all thought his impulse urged him. He dashed up and entered the drawing-room, where Kate sat alone, and with her head buried between her hands.
She looked up, startled by his sudden entrance, and then, resuming her former attitude, said, in a low, muffled voice, “You have heard what has befallen me. I am not fated to acquit the debt I owed.”
Harry sat down beside her in silence, and she went on: “I was hoping that this pain might have been spared us—I mean, this meeting—it is only more sorrow. However, as we are once more together, let me thank you. I know all that you intended, all that you meant by me. I know that you would have come with me, too. I know all! Now, Harry,” said she, in a more resolute voice, “listen to me calmly. What I say to you is no caprice, no passing thought, but the long-earned conviction of much reflection. From my people came every misfortune that has crushed yours. Your father’s long life of suffering—told in his own words—his diaries—revealed in the letters from his friends—I have read them over and over—was caused by this fatal connexion. Are these things to be forgotten? or are you cruel enough to ask me to repeat the experiment that broke your mother’s heart, and left your father friendless and forsaken? Where is your pride, Sir? And if you have none, where would be mine, if I were to listen to you?”